Steven Karidoyanes

Boston native Steven Karidoyanes is in his tenth season as Conductor and Music Director of the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony. Continually praised for the level of distinction to which he brings his ensembles, one reviewer said of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis performance he conducted, “Karidoyanes and his forces navigated it with absolute confidence, allowing the composer's unruly spirit to speak clearly through them.” (Boston Globe, November 7, 2011.) Since his appointment in 2004, he has led the NEC YS in their regular concerts in Jordan Hall, concerts in Symphony Hall, and in past concert tours of Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, and Eastern Europe. This is also his 20th season conducting the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional orchestra on the South Shore, and his eighth season leading Masterworks Chorale, conducting choral/orchestral masterworks in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre.

For several seasons he has served the Boston Pops as an understudy conductor, plus conducted the Boston Pops Brass at Fenway Park for a soccer match between Scotland and Portugal. In August 2013 he returned to Prague’s Smetana Hall to lead the North Czech Philharmonic in concert. Other past international guest conducting engagements include the North Czech Philharmonic in Prague’s Dvořák Hall, Hungary's Savaria Symphony Orchestra in Hainburg, Austria, the Prague (CZ) Symphony Chamber Orchestra in Smetana Hall, and Costa Rica’s National Music Institute Youth Symphony. He has also led the Syracuse Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and orchestras in the Washington, D.C. region. Opera productions conducted include Cape Cod Opera’s Carmen, The Mikado by the Bostonian Opera & Concert Ensemble [a.k.a. “The Bostonians”] and Opera-by-the-Bay’s (MA) Die Fledermaus.

He has held the posts of Music Director of the Boston College Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Winston-Salem Symphony and Greensboro Symphony orchestras in North Carolina, and Assistant Conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. Karidoyanes has served on the faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute for ten seasons and on the conducting faculty of the New England Conservatory.

Complementing his performing activities, Karidoyanes is a composer and member of ASCAP. His composition, Yerakína: Dionysian Dance for Orchestra, was written for and premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and has already been performed by the Boston Pops. His Café Neon: Fantasy on Greek Songs and Dances has been performed over 30 times by over a dozen orchestras coast to coast plus Italy, Greece, and Australia. A classical music announcer/producer, Karidoyanes has worked for National Public Radio affiliates in Boston, North Carolina, and Indiana.

Steven Karidoyanes holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Boston University and received training in orchestral conducting at the Canford School of Music in Dorset, England, where he studied with the renowned British conducting coach, the late George Hurst. Additional orchestral studies earned him the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for two consecutive years from Ball State University in Indiana.